This must be a question fermenting and fomenting minds across the Middle East and beyond into North Africa and around the world where Muslims reside, meet, mingle and discuss the political intricacies of the hour. The evidences could be actual tactics and planned policy or it could be only innuendo and hyperbole caused by the situational ethics, policies of the moment, sole remaining available alternatives, or the preferences of the man in the White House, President Obama. The truth is that come later January of 2017, a potentially long eighteen months plus a week give or take a few days and the foreign policies of the United States could take as violent a swing as they did when President Obama set out to be the most un-Bush-like President in American history. Will we see a return to the dull and predictable and similar policies as we had with George W. Bush? Not very likely. The one consistency in the Presidency is the lack of consistency in the Presidency. One would be hard pressed to find two consecutive Presidents whose policies and mannerisms in any manner or way resembled their predecessor which often is considered a good thing. Even after a popular President who often served two terms, a full eight years, at some point usually early in the second term the media finally starts to turn and from there it goes directly downhill and by the time inauguration day both the American people and the President themselves are anxious for them to leave Washington far in their wake never to return. With time the opinions of a President begin to average out between their high points and their lowest lows to somewhere which will resemble their standing in history. So, whether President Obama has chosen to support Shiite Islam over Sunni Islam is an intentional policy or the result of situations and a culmination of events leading him without his realizing how his actions may be perceived, in the end it really does not matter. Still, there will be those who will assign great importance, as has already graced many an article and editorial, both supporting and critiquing the President’s actions with both sides and assigned credit or blame all being pretty evenly split such that I have no idea which side of this is brilliance and which should be taken for buffoonery.

What we outside the world of Islam think, feel, argue or critique is of far less importance than what is the opinions of the leaders of the Sunni and Shia Islamic worlds; the Imams, the national leaders and the Muslim peoples themselves are where the consequences will be formed and fall. The thing the rest of us should fear is should alliances in the Muslim world start forming either favoring, fearing or targeting the United States become reality and end up forcing future policy alternatives and resulting in a United States firmly stuck on one side of this divide and because of such the rest of the world choosing up sides accordingly and then not only will the Muslim world be split in adversarial camps but the rest of the world also aligning down the very same divides as that is the thing that world wars are made of. It was the alliances which caused the spread of what should have been a quick skirmish and within a few months the scores settled after the assassination of Duke Ferdinand but then the two sides began calling in allies and those nations sympathetic and before one knows what was actually happening the entirety of Europe and Japan and all the respective colonies around the world were at war and World War I was born and before it died it eventually including the United States whose entry will be debated as to whether it was manufactured and if so by whom. World War II might have been far shorter had the British and French honored their commitments with Czechoslovakia and not given Hitler the Sudetenland or even after that foolishness had at least honored their subsequent promises to Czechoslovakia when Hitler marched through the now unprotected passes and gobbled up the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Instead they waited until after Czechoslovakia fell and Hitler had added much of the former Austrian-Hungarian Empire from World War I vintage to his side before finally striking at Poland still feeling sure that surely after all their previous gutlessness that the French and British threats were still as empty as before. For those still wondering, the French and British honored their treaties with Poland not that this was of much use to Poland who was swallowed in halves to Hitler’s Germany from their west and Stalin’s Soviets from their east and a few scant weeks until the two armies met in the center and Poland was divided between the two temporary allies. Eventually Hitler turned on Stalin as well making one of the two largest mistakes of the war with the other contender was not following the British across the Channel immediately after Dunkirk. If this reference troubled you, look up “mosquito armada World War II Dunkirk” and read about one of the strangest and most noble acts by the British people without requiring anything other than a call to arms, or at least to assist.

Should the Muslim and also the Arab worlds neither one decide that the United States has taken sides in their centuries old conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites and thus one side have closed off all relations with the United States, then the next President will have the luxury of mending fences and restoring balance in the United States Middle East policy. In President Obama’s defense, he was and still appears to be a strong supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood which is as Sunni as Islamic organizations get. The President has a couple of suspected Muslim Brotherhood affiliated or at least sympathizers in the administration as well as in high profile positions in the State Department and there are not many accusing him of being a sympathizer and solely allied with the Sunnis because of these facts. Certainly such is an easy match for his lack of bombing Assad while bombing the Islamic State despite Assad having murdered vastly more peoples all of them Sunni or non-Muslims while the Islamic State has murdered far fewer Shiites and non-Muslims. The problem with such reasoning is it takes a sophomoric view that numbers of fatalities and casualties is the sole reason for policy and ignores other influences such as perceived threat that one group or nation may present over the threat of another plus the reactions of the people of the United States who also have influence over decision more often than politicians or media care to admit, though the media goes to great lengths to influence the populace and their political conversations and should anybody likely be behind the apparent Shiite support over Sunni Muslims than anything else could ever hope to possess. Of course you will never hear the media taking the blame for the reactions from the people driven by the mainstream media which in turn influences the elected officials thus potentially changing the policies of the United States including foreign policies and position taken by a President. That is both the blessing and the curse of a free society which has open and supposedly transparent elections despite much of what some conspiracy theorists claim to have proof is untrue to which we should simply tell them to file their evidence with the courts of the FED (Federal Election Commission) and let the world, or at least the rest of the United States, settle these claims and force remedial action and a higher level of scrutiny and enforced compliance with security providing for honest elections.

The claims by some are likely part of a concerted effort to pressure the United States to alter its foreign policies in some manner probably more favorable to the Sunni Muslim and potentially the Sunni Arab states. The main reasons being given dance around one major foreign policy currently being pursued by the United States which is hugely obvious by the omission we have read claiming that the United States policies are highly anti-Sunni and pro-Shiite; that omission is the ongoing and ongoing and ongoing negotiations with Iran and the seeming falling all over themselves by the United States negotiating team which appear to be leaving Iran able to breakout and make nuclear weapons on an industrial scale within six to ten months from deciding whether they want to announce before or after they leave the restrictions from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or after as North Korea did before announcing their first nuclear weapon test after breaking their agreement which was negotiated by many of the same team members as are members in these negotiations as well. The main difference is the Secretary of State where one may not have great amounts of faith in Secretary Kerry’s abilities for a multitude of reasons most likely starting with his testimony about his fellow soldiers from his service in Viet Nam where he served with distinction even if not entirely with honor as he managed to receive three Purple Hearts and an immediate trip home with great haste and ease only to give the following testimony before the Senate here in transcript of the complete two hours and forty minute excerpt from his testimony where the below can be heard roughly between 5 minute 45 seconds through 7 minute mark:

“They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”

By now I believe almost everybody other than those so sold on the theory that President Obama is the smartest and most knowledgeable person to walk the halls of power in the history of the universe have realized that when it comes to foreign policy his expertise is that of the level of a neophyte and that is being generous. President Obama has done damage to the United States that may never be rectified as he has broken promises made by former Presidents whose guarantees were ratified by both houses of Congress with levels which if the letter of intents and promises given a certain leader of Israel where no such treaty was feasible without harming the standing the United States cared to retain with the Arab world thus a “mere letter which is not binding on any who followed President Bush” was really much more, but then again the bust of Winston Churchill was not given to any particular President to be an ornament that he found pleasing but a gift to the people of the United States and a gift he had not the authority no matter what his position to demand the British take away as he found it odious, many Americans including most of the ones I have ever known would have objected loudly and strenuously and offered to proudly house that gift in their own home just to retain it and offer it to a new President when such a gift might be more appreciated. That was also the treatment President Obama showed the Saudi Arabian Royals when he discounted their preferences and warning about Iran and simply gave them what in their culture would be considered a scolding for getting out of place for having the audacity to not only oppose him but to doubt his intentions, his intelligence, or his expertise as President Obama knows.

I guess one of the worst of all things one can ever commit would be holding any doubts about any and everything President Obama says or does as he is, in his own words we quote from a September, 2008, New York Times profile of Obama where he reportedly told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 campaign, according to The New Yorker,

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Well, guess that tells us all we need to know, the rest of us are in a second class league in any expertise we may have because there is a man who likely would meet us and in casual conversation at some point tell us we need not try to inform him on any subject as he already knows twice as much as any of us do on everything. It is little wonder that it has been reported that President Obama often has his daily morning intelligence briefing either told to be given to somebody else or simply waved it off completely often for weeks maybe months at a time and often when he does receive it interrupts to do personal affairs and appears to be distracted and not actually paying attention. I bet he really hears it all and has likely absorbed it all out of the ether and finds such reports unnecessary. According to the Washington Post article By Marc A. Thiessen from September 13, 2012, titled Obama alone: This president does not need intel briefers we quote from almost half the way down,

Vietor’s reply is quite revealing. It is apparently a point of pride in the White House that Obama’s PDB is “not briefed to him.” In the eyes of this administration, it is a virtue that the president does not meet every day with senior intelligence officials. This president, you see, does not need briefers. He can forgo his daily intelligence meeting because he is, in Vietor’s words, “among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet.”

Though I really should just let this lie as is, I just am unable to resist a little more fun. I am willing to bet that President Obama does not know better than I what I am thinking right about now, nor likely what your reaction has been either. Imagine being the candidate’s political director at the start of the campaign and have the candidate say to your face, “And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.” How does one not just get up and silently walk out the door and simply not return, how? I would be incapable of even supporting such a boorish and ignorant person who is so involved with themselves that they are a more narcissistic egomaniacal megalomaniac than I imagine I am in my wildest dreams, which is why I gave up dreaming long ago as I can dream while awake better than my subconscious can dream when I’m asleep, so top that President Obama.

Almost daily we can read any number of articles from all parts of the Western nations and even at times in Asian and Middle Eastern news services proclaiming how President Obama is such a rube and a fool allowing himself to be led by the nose down the primrose path to oblivion. Many of these articles also point out what fools his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have been for not insisting that President Obama wake up and smell the nuclear weapons. Now where I may agree heartily that Secretary of State John Kerry is one of the grandest fools to ever walk out onto the world’s stage for all to assess, I am a little more reluctant to claim the same of Hillary Clinton though I will agree that she is an opportunist and knew that crossing President Obama would have been political suicide if she was going to ever gain his support in her quest for the White House. Her foolishness was believing he would ever stoop to assisting anybody where it serves him not. So, now on to President Obama who is without a doubt the grand architect and even has Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani (from here on to be referred to as the ‘Smiling Cheshire Man’ after the cat from Alice in Wonderland that after its gone its oddly wicked smile remained to charm the unsuspecting {see picture below}) both believe they are playing the American President for the fool. It serves President Obama to have his detractors believing and calling him an idiot who is unable to see the forest for the trees as this forces the Democrats and leftists who support President Obama and tout him as the most brilliant man to ever grace the Oval Office to line up and defend him and placing the majority of the left wing media, and especially the New York Times to support his craftiness in that he is drafting an agreement with numerous little technical details which will deviously prevent the Iranians from reaching a breakout point on nuclear weapons for the rest of eternity. So, who is right and why?

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani smiling for report on how he and Iran charmed the world reminding all of the evil laugh as the Cheshire Cat faded away leaving only his wicked smile and it just fit calling him the ‘Smiling Cheshire Man’

A quick aside we had to include about Iranian President Rouhani and the quotes we caught right before press time and just felt had to be distributed to our friends and readers. The Iranian President Rouhani the ‘Smiling Cheshire Man’ was quoted by Nasim news agency stating, “Even if the nuclear talks fail, our diplomacy showed the world that we are logical. We never left the negotiation table and always provided the best answer.” Further, the ‘Smiling Cheshire Man’ stated, “Twenty-two months of negotiation means we have managed to charm the world, and it’s an art.” Well Mr. Smiling Cheshire Man, we have some news for you, we have not been charmed and know you for the jovial, familial, back stabbing, confidence grabbing, lying, betrayer of trust, sinister evil Smiling Cheshire Man that you are.

Believe it or not both sides are right and for the wrong reasons. Those calling President Obama the fool are wrong though they are correct that only a President of the United States who was a fool would allow these negotiations to have dragged on and be giving away the store as each deadline approaches before extending the talks one more time. The Democrats are close to right when they claim that President Obama is a smart man but are wrong that he is designing an agreement which will trick the Iranians preventing them from developing nuclear weapons as quickly as they are able. What most people are overlooking, likely because to even think it is considered treasonous even if it becomes known as true is that President Obama has been aiming the entire time to give Iran the cover, the funds and the freedom from inspections and the ability to do as they please precisely because his aim is for Iran to join the nations of the nuclear club and at the same time facilitate the Russian bear, a.k.a. President Putin, to flex his bare chest and retake control over whatever he feels bold enough to take and to provide China the wherewithal of claim all of the South China Sea as their private bathtub and the control over all the islands and atolls they can reclaim and/or build in the remaining time he is in office. Still, the crown in President Obama’s crown will be the hegemonic rise of Iran with their taking control of the southern Shia provinces of Iraq, defeat ISIS and impress their rule on all of Syria and possibly Lebanon as well placing them on the northern border of Israel and closer to Hamas to supply them through military convoys through the Israeli blockade, a confrontation he would condemn in the most serious terms while sliding them a private note congratulating them on their bold strategies. If I were Saudi Arabia I would be very wary of any Shiite uprisings in the northeast territories, especially the oil field lands and I cannot give serious enough warnings to King Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein of Jordan as his lands would stand between the Ayatollahs and their desired conquest of the Arab Palestinian lands in Judea and Samaria giving them fronts against Israel on three sides and nearly encircling the Jewish State. Where Iran would tout being on Israel’s borders as their greatest achievement and opportunity, they would eventually rue the day they strove to accomplish that feat in order to attack Israel directly.

Meanwhile, President Obama sits back in the White House, or out on the golf links, reveling in his brilliant handling of the United States media, his fooling the right into believing he was merely incompetent and not treasonous thus avoiding possible impeachment. Imagine how fast the House would bring up charges of impeachment and the Senate find the President guilty if it ever became known that he was actually planning the neutering of the United States’ ability to project power beyond her shores, leave the nuclear weapons stores in such disrepair as to possibly render over half the American nuclear arsenal beyond retrievable repair through not funding inspections and cancelling critical maintenance, rendering the United States military to a state of lacking in readiness rivalling their state right before World War II. And President Obama has further worked on souring relations with the most vital of allies starting with his disrespect shown the British Queen, Prime Minister and the entire British Isles with his thoughtless and insulting gifts when they first met, the disrespect of actually touching the Queen when they first met as Michelle Obama did and on top of all this having called on the British Embassy for them to come and remove the bust of Winston Churchill during his first few days in office. Then moving on to the barrages of insults thrown at Israel and her Prime Minister being refused press meetings as was the norm and having him enter through a back door of the White House and leaving him to, as stated to Netanyahu’s face, go have dinner with his family and for the Israelis to reconsider their position and send for him should they decide to be more reasonable and even arranging to meet Israeli President Peres in the Blair House rather than in the White House as is customary between heads of state. Additionally, his disregard of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family as well as his treasonous interference in Egyptian politics in a bald-faced attempt to place the Muslim Brotherhood as rulers in Egypt and retain them there even against the will of the Egyptian people. What else does he need to do, go to Paris and ask President Hollande if he has any clean white flags he can borrow as he forgot his handkerchief?

President Obama still has to tread his near treasonous path at the very least until the fall of next year though he will probably be permitted great amounts of latitude as the Republicans appear almost fearful of protesting President Obama’s actions too vehemently afraid they may be accused of being racist while the Democrats, at least those completely in the tank for the President, seem all too eager to use that label on anybody who dares to challenge the greatness and brilliance they appear to hold Obama as possessing. Meanwhile, President Obama can simply continue and carry on in much the same manner as he has to this point with possibly a few extra rounds of golf thrown in thus aiding in the belief that he is unconcerned with the pressures and responsibilities of the office. Of course the Presidency has appeared to have drawn an extra decade or more off of his life judging by the greying of his hair and other certain differences in his appearance and mannerisms (though I have often suspected that since Richard Nixon Presidents have dyed their hair greyer rather than to cover the grey). Most Presidents, as with President Obama, tend to become more deliberate and slow down in the meter of their speech and become more soft spoken as the office has likely taxed them and struck them with some very unexpected and, as they were unappreciated, sleepless nights and shocking revelations and forced the meeting of threats beyond those we are ever aware of and perhaps that is for the better. A sure sign that there has been collusion between the American Administration and the Iranians will be if come next fall the two parties are still negotiating a mutually agreeable parting gift that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry can cheerily grant the Iranians virtually everything they could possibly have dreamed to have had included. Negotiations being handed off to the next President is near completely impossible as the Iranians would not tempt the following administration being anywhere near as accommodating as has the Obama administration. It would be doubtful that President Obama would want to have the negotiations continuing during the lead-up to the elections as it would play into the hands of a Republican campaigning on foreign policy disasters such as the Iran negotiations and having it hurt the Democrat candidate. The one thing that has been so troubling about the Iranian nuclear program negotiations was who in the State Department thought having pretty much the same team members from the failure that were the North Koran nuclear negotiations that resulted in North Korea testing their first nuclear weapon within a year of completing negotiations now negotiating for the United States with Iran unless the desired end is identical to those results. Would it beyond probability that should President Obama sign an agreement with the Iranians mere days, or even weeks, before the end of his term in office and after the elections have determined the next President might actually lead to an investigation into possible irregularities and even collaboration between President Obama, certain high members of his administration and high officials in the State Department be investigated as a credible investigation could be useful in setting the record straight and alleviating suspicions which would be sure to arise.

There are many other suspicious events and seeming collusions to foil the regular systems and critical checks and balances through the two terms of the Obama Presidency which have given witness either to a level of competence by the administration or a level of collusion which would be extremely troubling should it be proven true. The original passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), Obamacare, which was not supported by a single Republican vote but still required party discipline beyond normal enforcement yet this is exactly what was achieved. Then the two separate reviews by the Supreme Court, both of which many had predicted would cripple the entirety of the program as should either case have struck down vital and necessary implementations and interpretations would have mortally wounded the legislation and potentially caused a crisis which could have caused the complete rollback of all of the many tentacles of Obamacare throughout the healthcare industry and forced a reset back to the systems which existed previous to the passing of Obamacare. There have been reports of irregularities with elections which have exceeded previous levels in scope and severity which could be relegated to better tracking abilities using computers and predictive software as well as possible party politics. The record increases in people receiving food stamps, welfare, disability payments and other government relief payments which have come under scrutiny but still there has not been irrefutable evidence of collusion by the White House beyond pressing changes in policy attitudes, a change which within the prerogatives of any Administration and are not outside of party politics. Still, it would seem that we have been bombarded with a seemingly unending and ever building torrent of such reports and suspicions which may also be another result of the widening distance between the two extremes in the political arena where candidates who just a decade or so past would have easily been considered mainstream in each party are now looking at their party which seemingly have slid ever further to the extremes making agreement and cooperation nearly impossible or at least highly improbable. Perhaps President Obama’s terms in office may be the harbinger of a new normal where whichever party is out of control of the White House will be critically hyper-scrutinizing every single word, policy, spokespersons, advisors or any other iota of data all seeking any crack in the armor to launch a partisan attack in an attempt to wound and weaken the President and thus impair their ability to get their agenda accomplished. In all honesty, if this results in near paralysis in domestic policies and forces future Congress sessions to each be even less productive each term, then this just could be to the benefit of the American people as there are already more laws and regulations than any law abiding person could ever comply with and not be in contradiction of the law almost hourly if not at least daily. At some point the people need to honestly ask when does a society become too litigious, when does a government be found to be passing laws to justify their positions and salaries? By the time such discussions reach the general public it is way past time to turn things around and there will never be an end in sight through the existing systems, so once it becomes an issue the issue has already passed by and the evidence will soon permeate that society. Such a question can never be discussed too early and yesterday will always have been preferable to tomorrow to breach such a discussion.

Is it a simple case of one of those strange quirks which history will muse over or is it a divine sign that the man who removed the Muslim Brotherhood horrors from governing Egypt and answered the cries of his people winning him the prized office of Egyptian President has a name which as spelled in English transliteration is the exact reverse of the English initials of the newest and most deadly allies of the Muslim Brotherhood, thus we have Egyptian President Sisi now facing forces from ISIS, Sisi vs. ISIS (and as we have said before, we pronounce ISIS as is, is thus it all depends on what the meaning of Is-is, is.) Now for the existing and coming horrors and the potential coming allies who have worked silently and in only the most untraceable means to support each other’s efforts in the Sinai Peninsula as well as Gaza may become all too public and by doing so be one of the most important ends of the coming series of conflagrations. There may be no choice for the Egyptian forces for success in forcing both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State allied fighters from the Sinai Peninsula as President Sisi knows that he must not commit the entire strength of the Egyptian military into any sweep of the Sinai. Further, there are many within the Egyptian military whose villages and relatives live and are amongst if not having actually joined the Muslim Brotherhood or potentially joined the new Caliphate of ISIS and thus President Sisi and his generals are aware that they can only use troops specially chosen and known for their complete loyalty and discipline. Even those chosen for regular checkpoint or other daily military or security assignments are likely chosen carefully. One can bet that President Sisi probably witnessed, and not just knows of, the historic assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat by disgruntled members of the Egyptian military who were far more loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood.

There are many who will claim that there is nothing which would permit the presumably secular Muslim Brotherhood and the fanatical religious ISIS to form any alliance despite the truth that the Muslim Brotherhood spawned al-Qaeda which established the Iraqi organization for al-Qaeda from which ISIS was spawned. The reality is that the Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously based organization whose credo states that “The Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path and death in the name of Allah is our goal.” Where the Muslim Brotherhood has somewhat of a secular view is when it comes to governance that they claim to support a socialist governance which holds elections until the Muslim Brotherhood gains control over the national governance and then such inconveniences become less important. What has been overlooked in this false dichotomy is that the Muslim Brotherhood has not made any statement concerning their position on should the Caliphate be reestablished. By their apparent coordination in horrific and deadly assault on the Egyptian checkpoints and other positions throughout the Sinai Peninsula both the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS displayed a level of cooperation that should put to bed any doubts about their levels of agreement.

Further, there was obvious coordination and cooperation given these operations which included arms and other logistics from within Gaza provided by Hamas which should put to bed not only any doubts about Hamas working with their parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood, but also their cooperation and general support for ISIS and the willingness of ISIS to work willingly and knowingly with Hamas. This coordinated and seamless planning and execution of an assault on this level provides all the evidence necessary to prove that there is recognition and compliance with the authority granted to ISIS to lead the efforts of the Islamist groups and puts to lie the claims that ISIS was planning to go to war with Hamas but instead should provide all the evidence that the recent breakup of the Fatah unity government with Hamas was initiated by Hamas as they were already planning coordinated and supportive efforts with ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood against the government of President Sisi in Egypt. The thing which needs to be given the greatest amount of concern should be the replacement of Fatah and the Arab Palestinian Authority by the ISIS led, Muslim Brotherhood supported Hamas takeover of the Arab Palestinian operations in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) presenting Israel with the challenge of operations in Judea and Samaria taking on a whole new level of violence and coordinated threats should Fatah be defeated or simply collapse as any support it once enjoyed changing horses and moving to give their loyalties to the ISIS led Sunni Islamist merging of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood into the ranks of ISIS.

This brings us to the facing off against a mutual foe between Egypt and Israel and the potential for coordination and potentially joint missions within the Sinai Peninsula as well as throughout Gaza between Israel and Egypt. This would mean a deeper level of coordination beyond simply intelligence sharing and the mere coordination of movements to assure that the two sides do not reach a point where they might interfere with each other’s execution of operations to a level where the coordinated and complimentary operations are planned with the aim of mutual strengthening the other’s effectiveness. There would also be situations, especially within Gaza, where operational support for Egyptian operations within Gaza would be granted close in air support and ground use of sorties from artillery fire to compliment one another’s operational effectiveness. Such coordination between Egyptian military operations, especially when such operations would require informing Israel of the size and scope of Egyptian operation in the Northern Sinai and especially such operations that may extend necessarily into Gaza, as all such in-force operations by Egypt are required to be cleared through Israel according to their peace treaty and supportive accords and also to avoid clashes between the two nations which could easily spiral out of control dissolving any gains made between the two nations in building trusts and peace. Such sharing of intelligence and potential coordination of operations even, if simply done to avoid direct confrontations which could arise as a result of a friendly-fire incident where both sides were attempting to establish their control over a particular objective, be that objective a central strongpoint or the eradication of a permanent large rocket and missile launch site in order to silence its use against both sides, as such a dedicated site would pose a definitive set of difficulties to any operations.

Cooperation between Israel and Egypt would not be an entirely new event as the levels of cooperation have been exercised previously as to who would take the lead position in apprehending any vessels attempting to break the blockade of Gaza which has been in effect since the Hamas takeover of the region from Fatah. This has been evidenced when on multiple occasions Egypt, both when under Mubarak and now under Sisi, when ships tried to smuggle by circumventing the Israeli blockade by hugging the Egyptian coast of the north of the Sinai Peninsula the Egyptians had a surprise for them, they guarded against such efforts as President Sisi and his government have had just as much to fear from Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza as has Israel. Egypt has had just as tight a closed border with Gaza as has Israel and in some ways an even tighter closure as no aid reaches Gaza in any manner, let alone comparable to the multiple tonnage crossing daily into Gaza, daily even during the entirety of the Gaza War Operation Protective Edge last summer. Egypt has had better effectiveness in finding and closing tunnels under their border with Gaza which are used to smuggle things in and out of Gaza as has Israel in locating the infiltration tunnels which caused such a stir as the IDF had appeared completely surprised by the extensive tunnel system Hamas had been planning to utilize in a massive operation against the Israelis during the High Holy Days last year. Keeping the borders controlled has been a primary effort of both Egypt and Israel as both have suffered threats from within Gaza with the Egyptian threats having often been estimated and paid in lives for any missed tunnels by the Egyptians often lead to infiltrations into the Sinai Peninsula in the form of manpower and also weaponry and explosives for the design of car and truck bombs, IEDs (improvised explosive device used in place of land mines) and other explosive delivery methods and systems which are as varied in kind as they do in their delivery. The reality has been that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and numerous other terrorist groups have just as much hate for the Sisi government as they do towards Israel.

With ISIS moving into the Sinai Peninsula one has to wonder what there objective may be. Thus far there has been little to no change across the Negev-Sinai border and there have been the usual ramping up of terrorist strikes which accompany summer but surprisingly much of that can be attributed to problems in Judea and Samaria. What has been somewhat disconcerting has been the increase in attacks in Judea and Samaria claimed to have been attributable to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The one item which had been surprising which this assault upon the Egyptian forces and the particulars have put to rest were the dire warnings that there was a definitive expectation for a war in Gaza waged by ISIS against Hamas and potentially Islamic Jihad. Something about the threat has seemed strange, especially the ISIS against Hamas warnings as in so many ways Hamas and ISIS appear to be natural allies. The only thing which made sense about these threats was they were disinformation though the target escaped reason, well, until now. The intended target of ISIS being out to overthrow Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood was more about throwing off any investigation by the Egyptians into the validity of these claims and the simple overlooking of things being exactly the opposite. The three have been cooperating and this past week the blood soaked reality came crashing home with all the signals coming together all at one time putting to lie the ISIS against Hamas false flag arguments. The similarities between Hamas and ISIS has been a major part in the explanation by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as early as last summer when explaining why it had been paramount that Operation Protective Edge be fought with much the same ferocity which had been reserved thus far for only ISIS by Western interests. But even back then there had appeared to Israeli sources of intelligence that Hamas and ISIS were natural allies which is why more efforts had been expelled into drawing out and eliminating ISIS cells in Judea and Samaria than in Gaza.

Apparently Israel had best ramp up their surveillance in seeking out and destroying ISIS cells in Judea and Samaria as they could easily be precursors to Hamas making their new move to replace the current Fatah centered Arab Palestinian Authority with one which places Hamas and ISIS to enter into Judea and Samaria replacing Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas. This was the expected move which may have found Hamas and ISIS working together to gain additional leverage against Israel by taking over the entirety of the Arab Palestinian Authority, something that with Hamas would have already occurred had Abbas ever permitted the Arabs in Judea and Samaria to be able to vote for their own government, something Abbas has been refusing to allow knowing full well that as soon as elections were held that he would fall from power. Apparently the threats of an ISIS-Hamas war in Gaza worked if its intention was allowing the two to have close cooperation setting up this assault on Egypt. Perhaps this is the main event of this coming summer, an alliance which will have Gaza spread its tentacles and wrest power from Abbas giving it to Haniyeh, the former Prime Minister in Gaza before resigning last year to permit the formation of a unity government. Hamas leader Haniyeh knew he was risking nothing despite appearances to the contrary. The ruse was an effort to try to force Abbas to finally allow Arab elections across Gaza, Judea and Samaria. The effort failed to materialize and perhaps the one unknown may have been the undoing of the carefully laid out, years in the making, plan. This unknown was the extent in which ISIS had infiltrated into the Arab Palestinian society. What made knowing this impossible was the fact that there could have been untold numbers of disenchanted Arab Palestinians tired of never being allowed the vote over who controlled their governance. This could have produced fertile growing lands for the ISIS message of rules as written in the Quran. Life by the structures dictated in the Quran might have appealed except many in Judea and Samaria did not desire something more along the lines of a Constitution that would have permitted the enshrining of modern rights and society. Sharia was not what many Arab Palestinians desire as they have witnessed how the Israeli society has produced people very happy with their lives and their society despite the threats of terrorism. They see a people who are slowly but inexorably moving to realize the advantages of a religious life but also realizing that religious life must not be imposed by government and that the only control the religion should have on the governance are the Biblical limitations through which government is prevented from enriching those in its service and that government must serve the people it is in the end responsible to care for. Government cares for the people, and the people do not need to be made subservient in any manner to their government and this is best realized by assuring that there never comes a ruling elite who have usurped unto themselves through government or economic means the ability to enslave the people. The people are what are to be kept as noble and government should act noble but never be permitted to become nobles. This is why Sharia will always be an impossible sell to those who have known true freedom and liberty. The fact that many of the older Palestinians who remember freedom and elections having meaning who will be the saviors of the Arab Palestinian society providing they step forward in the short term and teach their society the beauty of living and celebrating life and not the opposite of existing in order to die with how one dies defines how they lived. One’s life must define ones death and by that we mean the tributes and loving memories they leave the world with after living and inspiring others by their lives. When a society starts to define one’s life by how they die prematurely and before their time then there is a society which serves Ba’al and has reinstituted child sacrifice, for what else can one call a society which reveres a child because they went out to serve their society and their god by an act of suicide, and even worse, a suicide which attempted to take as many who were full of life and living the best they were able as their victims in their sacrifice. Life is already too short; making one’s life tragically shorter is just that, a tragedy. A society that reveres those who chase death is a society doomed to destroy the very future it claims to promise. The slogan which must be at the bedrock of a society is to choose life, in all things and all ways choose life and use that life to help everyone else choose life and live a life which celebrates life.

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